Telecommunication services are provided by telephone companies via telecommunications networks to which a subscriber (i.e., a customer) may connect its telephone or other telecommunications equipment. Recently, telephone companies have made a division between the equipment owned by the telephone company and that owned by the individual customers. The point at which the telephone company owned equipment (hereinafter the telephone network) and the customer owned equipment meet is herein termed the interface. The interface typically is enclosed in a box (hereinafter a telephone utility box) that is mounted to a wall in the basement of a building. Commonly, the box includes a building entrance protector (BEP) circuit and a network interface unit.
The telephone company owns all of the wires and equipment from the telephone company central office up to and including this telephone utility box and the equipment therein. The building owner owns and is responsible for all telephone wires and equipment in the building other than the telephone utility box. In apartments and office buildings, individual tenants, of course, typically own and are responsible for the telephone equipment within their rental space, such as individual telephones and modems. As referred to herein, the term "subscriber's network" refers to the telecommunications wiring infrastructure in a building, which is owned by the building owner and may include a single subscriber's or multiple subscribers' telecommunications wires and/or equipment. The term "subscriber" as used herein shall refer to an entity subscribing to telecommunications service provider (e.g., a local telephone company) whose telecommunications wires enter a building through a particular telephone utility box.
BEP's of the type heretofore known typically comprise a cable splice chamber and a protector field for providing electrical surge protection for each subscriber's telephone line pair. A telecommunications wire bundle from a telephone company leads into a splice chamber within the BEP. Each individual subscriber line includes two wires in the bundle, termed tip and ring. In the splice chamber, the wires are unbundled and electrically coupled to the surge protector field within the BEP. Wires leading from the surge protector are electrically coupled to the back ends of individual connectors in a connector assembly.
The connector assembly comprises an array of electrically-conductive connectors. It typically is an electrically insulative mounting block in which a plurality of electrically-conductive connectors are held in a standard predetermined relationship. One well-known example is a type-66 connector assembly. Examples of widely accepted connector assemblies are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,957,335 to Troy, U.S. Pat. No. 5,127,845 to Ayer et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,680 to Suffi.
The connectors terminate in terminals which may be used as connecting points, splice points or cross-connect points of a telephone company's telecommunications network. In telecommunications applications, such connector assemblies are commonly mounted on a panel in the BEP with the back ends of the connectors (the end behind the panel) coupled to the telephone company's telecommunications network through the surge protectors and splice box. The front ends of the connectors in the connector assembly are coupled to the network interface unit by jumper cables.
The network interface unit enables a subscriber to test a telephone line at the interface of the telephone company's telecommunications network and the subscriber's network, thereby bypassing the subscriber's network and testing only the telephone company's telecommunications network. This way, the subscriber can very quickly determine if a problem with a line pair exists either in the telephone company's network or its own. A typical network interface unit of the prior art is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,363,440 to Daoud, incorporated herein by reference, and is illustrated in FIG. 1 hereof.
FIG. 1 shows an exemplary network interface unit of the prior art. The network interface units of the type heretofore known include an array of interfaces 10 mounted within respective openings in a chassis 11. There is one interface 10 for each subscriber line pair. Each interface 10 includes a connector portion 12 which comprises a pair of screws 13 and 14 electrically coupled to the customer's equipment by means of wires (tip and ring for single subscriber line; not shown). These wires are owned by the building owner and are part of the subscriber's network. These wires are routed through the building to a telephone jack to which a telephone (or other telecommunications equipment) is coupled. Screws 13 and 14 also are coupled to a pair of wires (also not shown in FIG. 1) within a telephone cable 15 which emerge from the body of the connector 12. The other end of telephone cable 15 terminates in a standard RJ11 plug 16.
Adjacent to each connector portion 12, is a bridge assembly 17 which includes an RJ11 jack 18 for receiving the RJ11 plug 16. Jack 18 is electrically coupled via jumper wires (not shown) to connectors in the connector assembly of the BEP (not shown) and therethrough to the telecommunications network as previously described. A bridge of the prior art is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,004,433 to Daoud, which is incorporated herein by reference.
The network interface unit is embodied within a telephone equipment box 1 comprising a base member 19, a cover 21, and a hinge 20 coupling the cover to the base member. The box 1 may be mounted to a wall in the basement of a building. Commonly, the aforementioned BEP is included within the box 1 and may be positioned behind the network interface unit chassis. Accordingly, a subscriber line in the subscriber's network is coupled to the telephone company's telecommunication network at the network interface unit by plugging RJ11 plug 16 into jack 18.
In the event that a subscriber finds his telephone line to be inoperative, he or more likely a superintendent of the building may open the telephone equipment box and find the connector/bridge unit corresponding to the resident's telephone line. The superintendent could then uncouple the corresponding plug 16 from the mating jack 18 and connect the RJ11 plug of a working telephone directly into jack 18, thus bypassing the subscriber's entire network. If the superintendent obtained no dial tone, he or she could conclude that the problem with the subscriber line in question was within the telephone company's telecommunication network and could refer the problem to the local telephone company. However, if the superintendent discerned a dial tone, he could conclude that the problem was within the subscriber's network and, therefore, not the responsibility of the telephone company.
Since a connector/bridge combination unit is provided for each subscriber line pair, the network interface unit can be quite large, particularly, in a large apartment or office building.
In older buildings, the interface between the telephone company's telecommunication network and the subscriber network may not even have a network interface unit as described above which would allow the subscriber to easily determine on his own in which portion of the system the problem lies. Rather, when a subscriber finds his telephone line to be inoperative, a telephone company technician must be dispatched in order to test the telephone line at the interface between the telecommunication network and the subscriber's network.
Without a network interface unit as described above, the technician typically first taps into the connector pair on the BEP's connector assembly to which the subscriber's telephone line was connected. In order to tap into tip and ring terminals on a connector assembly of a BEP, the technician uses a specially adapted handset. The handset has a pair of wires terminating in alligator clips to facilitate such tapping. Alternately, the handset might have a pair of wires terminating in conductive test probes.
As before, if the technician discerned no dial tone, he could conclude that the problem was with the telephone company's telecommunication network. However, if the technician obtained a dial tone, the problem was within the subscriber's network and, therefore, not the responsibility of the telephone company. In the latter case, the technician had been dispatched unnecessarily at considerable cost to the telephone company or the subscriber.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for retrofitting a BEP to allow a subscriber to easily determine whether the inoperability of his telephone is due to a fault in the telephone company's telecommunication network or in the subscriber's network.
It is another object of the present invention to provide an apparatus for allowing a subscriber to easily test a telephone line pair at the interface between the telephone company's telecommunication network and the subscriber's network which occupies minimal volume and is inexpensive.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a network interface unit of reduced volume and complexity which allows each individual line pair in a telephone equipment box to be tested individually.